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I have never had health related issues due to HIV and I'm still drug free. I would like to believe that my health will hold forever, but it probably won't.

What happens when I get sick? He's never really dealt with sick people, hell neither have I. What happens when I get sick and he starts to get a realistic look at dealing with HIV and the possiblity of my dying.

Am I just fooling myself that this can work? How does it work? We've talked about it, but the reality is so different from the conversation.

If you monitor your health and have access to health care and the proper medications and get treatment before your immune system is too worn out, there's no reason to believe you will be "getting sick" any more than anyone else, whether negative or positive.

There are many magnetic relationships. I have a friend who has had HIV since 1986 and he has been in a very solid relationship for the last 10 years with someone who is negative. They are both doing great.

Yes you might get sick but so might anybody. There are no real guarantees.

There is something to be said for starting treatment when a poz person is in a magnetic relationship (even if numbers are good) since being undetectable even further reduces chances of transmission, say with oral sex (esp. if swallowing) or if a condom were to break.

there's no predicting the future, so my advice is to not worry about something like this until it looks like it's about to happen and then communicate, communicate, communicate with your partner. I was in what we thought was a sero-discordant relationship for 10 yrs where we worried about my health so much that we ignored his - and he died! So you don't know what'll happen in the future; but since no one in your relationship is dealing with serious health issues yet, don't worry about it needlessly.

The answer you're more than likely to get from everyone is yes. I can say from experience (as the negative part of a three year relation back in1994 and a the poz part of a short-lived one in 2009) they do work. It's what YOU make of it.

You have to keep in mind that HIV does not have to be, and more than likely will not be, what shortens our time in eden. As the cliche says anyone can get hit by a in bus.

Just stay safe(r) and all will be fine.

Logged

"I have tried hard--but life is difficult, and I am a very useless person. I can hardly be said to have an independent existence. I was just a screw or a cog in the great machine I called life, and when I dropped out of it I found I was of no use anywhere else."

I know I've heard about relationships breaking up when a partner gets sick--from HIV, cancer, or whatever. I guess it depends on the character of your partner. In sickness and health, right? I think the big thing I'm trying to avoid is allowing my HIV to dominate everything.

I've read where the negative or "unsick" partner often feels neglected--whether HIV or cancer. I'm trying to remember that and not let HIV run things. That is hard when everything is about me right now. I hope once I come to terms with HIV, it won't be something I even talk about that often. Right now, my partner arranges his schedule to go to doctor appts. He says he wants to go and doesn't mind it. The other thing is getting control of my fears and depression. We use to go to the lake every weekend. Last summer, the jet skis never came out of the garage. We really didn't go anywhere. We did go to Florida for the holidays and plan to go back in April. I'm trying to get back to normal, so HIV doesn't run the show. I've also made a point of talking about his health issues. He has bad migraines--something he's had for years.

With meds, you shouldn't have to worry about getting sick. I think the problem comes when someone is terminally ill. It becomes so hard on the partner who isn't sick. I know my friend's mom just lost her husband. He had really bad diabetes and lost his legs. While she is very sad about losing him, I could tell she felt relief that she didn't have to deal with that hell anymore. If someone jets at the first sign of an illness, I have little respect for them. I have compassion for someone who has had to deal with a long-term ill partner. Again, if we monitor our health and take meds, we shouldn't have to deal with that. Everyone keeps telling me that anyway.

One last thing-- We have to remember that the number one reason for bankruptcy are medical bills. I think when people break up over an illness, it may be more complicated. There are probably lots of medical debt (why we need universal healthcare). The friend's mom I mentioned lost her home and had to move from a beautiful home to a dump.

I'm not a fan of serodiscoradant relationships myself, though I've heard that they work (anecdotally). I'd neither encourage nor discourage such things in theory (love wins all, after all) though I'm hardly a booster.

Serosorting is the obvious answer when all's said and done.

Logged

Blessed with brains, talent and gorgeous tits.

The revolutionary smart set reads The Spin Cycle at least once every day.

As I haven't gotten back into the relationship game since being diagnosed I can't really discuss the real world logistics of this. It just seems easier now to look for poz guys. Remove the doubt, rejection, potential lack of support from the equation at the beginning instead of it potentially manifesting later on. With that said if I met someone who was negative and I liked him and he was okay with my status I wouldn't turn him down because he was negative. I do however have a strong fear of infecting someone else, and if that ever happened I'm pretty sure the guilt would destroy me let alone any potential relationship.

I was in a serodiscordant relationship and there was never an issue with my HIV, at least from a physical aspect. He'd dated other HIV+ guys previously so he didn't bat an eye when I told him. He was also casual with it -- never pestered me about how my cd4 counts were, etc. but if I talked about it he was supportive and listened, etc. It wasn't the focus of our deep and abiding love. We focused more on shopping and going to the gym... and lots of clubbing. Great dancer!

However, when I began to see a shrink things got dicey because he was convinced that I sat there in my sessions ragging on him, which I did a bit because we were having a rough patch. But mostly I was discussing things that had nothing to do with him. Anyway, it became a sore spot so finally I broke things off with him. He said I was the first guy that ever dumped him, but whatever. My mental health was more important at that time, plus I'd started to have health issues (wasting) though that didn't bother him from a sexual aspect or so he said. I was much more gym-bod when we met so I'm sure the change to being a skinny rake wasn't that appealing in bed, but I eventually gained the weight back via testosterone, which in fact made me even more horny than I normally am so in that regards he thought it was a win-win as he liked to have sex constantly, though I had to draw the line with fisting which is what he ALWAYS wanted to do.

We remained friends for several years, but didn't have sex ever when we got together. Then we had one messy fight and he hung the phone up on me and I've never talked with him again. Sadly I still think about him often because he's the one man I've loved more than any other person in the world. Well, that sucks doesn't it?